


Hushabye Mountain

by Rehlia



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Babybones (Undertale), Fluff, Gen, Gift Fic, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Oneshot, good things happen to kiddie sans for once, hashtag let sans have good things 2k16
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-24
Updated: 2016-11-24
Packaged: 2018-09-01 23:30:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8642461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rehlia/pseuds/Rehlia
Summary: Inspired by Maximum Overboner's 'The Firmament in September', although I think it can be understood by itself too. 
A lone monster finds a pair of sick children in the trash one night, and decides to take care of them.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [maximum_overboner](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maximum_overboner/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Firmament In September](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8601421) by [maximum_overboner](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maximum_overboner/pseuds/maximum_overboner). 



> This is the first time I wrote an actual gift fic for someone, I hope they like it ´v` I adored The Firmament in September and felt really inspired after I read it, and since I kept thinking 'god, I just want to hug Sans and wrap him in a blanket'... well. Boner gave permission, and here we are. I hope I got all the settings for gifting the fic right .__.

It was late in the evening and she was hurrying through the convoluted tangle of streets and back alleys that made up one of the poorer districts of New Home, those skinny winding streets where the weight of their harsh lives pressed the spines of all the inhabitants into unhealthy slouches, when she heard it. The faint echo of leftover noise. A small, warbling cry, something barely audible through the evening din of the city. If the streets hadn’t been empty already, she was sure even she wouldn’t have heard it at all. She froze for just a moment, her eyes quickly glancing at the dumpsters and loose trash bags in the alley the noise came from - 

Not her problem. 

She hurried on. It was probably nothing, anyway, must be nothing, she heard it wrong, there was no need to endanger herself for a random noise that probably wasn’t even really there. It wasn’t her problem because there was no problem, simple as that. She reached her home within a few minutes, the shabby grey stone house with her small flat smelling of overcooked dog food and wet wallpaper like always, windows glazed with smoke and in some places patched with old newspapers. Letting herself in and putting the bag of freshly bought groceries away - fresh as anything could be in the underground - she finally allowed herself to relax after a long day at work, with dissatisfied customers and a dissatisfied manager yelling at her again and again. Yelling. The nothing had not sounded like yelling but almost as if, with more volume packed behind it, it could have been - nothing. It was nothing.

What would she have for dinner? Something warm. She was desperate for something warm and comforting that would soothe her soul and heat her up from the inside, the kind of food that would keep her warm long after the last morsel had been swallowed. Soup, maybe? She took one of the cans, no need to put in a lot of effort when she was already so tired, and reached for the opener. 

It had been such a small, helpless noise. 

Tiny and desperate. 

No. Not her problem, she told herself again. It was not. She had absolutely nothing to do with that noise, even if it hadn’t been nothing, even if it had been something. She wouldn’t have anything to do with it, it was probably just a rat or some other disgusting vermin dying of hunger or cold or something else out in the trash - 

She sat both can and opener down and before she knew it, she was back out the door, hurrying through the alleys again. The long claws of her bird feet clicked quietly on the cracked pavement. To her own anger, she remembered exactly which back alley the noise had come from, and found it without having to really look for it at all. Dumb. So dumb, she shouldn't have.

She paused, strained her floppy hairless ears for more noises. 

There, a ragged breath, inaudible to anyone else than her, she was sure of that. She took in the alley. Plastic dumpsters and metal trashcans, stale beer and other unidentifiable liquids dried in layers on the old asphalt, soggy tissue paper and half-rotting, unidentifiable debris littering the alley as far as she could see. It stank. The garbage was collected every Friday and Wednesday, but that didn't seem to mean much here. She looked left and right and forwards again, before she ventured into the dark, trash covered opening, magic crackling ready at her fingertips just in case it was a trap. You never knew, after all.

The source of the noise was quickly found in the end, nothing being something indeed: a bundle of dirty, ragged clothes with a round, soft-cheeked head poking out on top, breathing shallow. It coughed a little, disturbing some of the soaked tissue papers next to it, and curled tighter around the other bundle of dirty clothes, the one that was even smaller.

A child and a baby, lying in the wet filth of a back alley. 

She looked around again, surely the parents must have been close. Must.

“Hello?” She asked uselessly.

But of course, she already knew it was futile. They were too dirty, and if she had been able to walk past the noise, enter her flat, unpack her groceries and ponder her decision before she came back here, all without someone coming to pick these kids up… then the chances of someone coming now were low to nonexistent. 

She sighed. So it was her problem now after all. 

She crouched down and reached out, brushing her hand against the forehead of first the baby and then the older child. The baby felt a bit warm, but the older child felt heated and sweaty. Considering the cough, she thought it was probably some sort of magical overexertion that, combined with the cold wetness and dirt of the alley, had left the kid with a cold. Nothing really bad, but not something that should be left untreated either. A doctor, then. She’d call a doctor, hand the children over, and then her consciousness would be clean. Quick and easy. 

Her hands moved under the older child and she picked it up, careful not to jostle it too much or the baby it was holding. A can and an old, hard piece of bread fell out of the child’s pocket, the bread looking as if it had been pulled from the same kind of filthy garbage that littered this back alley. Gross. The can looked relatively clean though. She squinted at the can and recognised it as the type they sold two stores over from where she worked. Hadn’t they complained about thieves recently? Great. And now she was apparently holding the one responsible. 

Her five eyes took in the flushed face of the older kid. It wasn’t even that old. Six, maybe, if that. Maybe even just five. Just a little kid, clutching a baby, both in dirty, torn clothes. Stealing. She sighed, understanding what they must be. Child services, that was who she had to contact. And they could contact a doctor and take care of everything else. Although at this time, the office would be closed already… 

She stood up, and began to walk. She could have gone to a doctor anyway, but instead she found herself back at her apartment. 

One night, she told herself. One night, and then tomorrow she’d call someone. 

Closing the door behind her, she walked over to the sofa in her small living room and laid the children down on it, pulling a blanket over their shivering bodies. There, much better. Warm and dry, and no reeking alcohol or soggy trash in sight.

What else?

She had been about to make soup, and she figured that for two sick kids, soup was a good idea too. So she returned to the kitchen and finally opened the can, pouring the contents into a pot to heat up on her stove. She poured a second can in on top of that. Hey, she was hungry too. More than enough for herself and those two like this. There were vegetables and stuff in there, she didn't know and didn't care, never too hung up on what exactly she shoved into her mouth to keep going. Surely vegetables would be good for them. The soup was heated quickly, but instead of serving right away, she kept the pot on the stove on low heat and kept cooking until all the ingredients in the soup turned to soft mush, easily squashed under a spoon. Better to swallow for the little one. 

She filled a bowl with the liquid and the mashed vegetables and brought it over. 

What now? She had no idea how to feed someone who wasn’t even awake. 

“Hey,” she said, poking the older kid in the shoulder. 

No response. 

Did she have to do everything by herself? She put the bowl down and pulled the two kids into her arms again, marvelling at how tightly the older kid held the baby. She wasn’t sure if she could pry them apart if she tried. She had no reason to try, though. It could keep holding the baby, that made it easier for her. She sat on the couch, the children still in her arms, and took up the bowl again. It was a clumsy arrangement, one arm supporting the head of the older kid and holding the bowl, and the other free to feed. Parents must all secretly have extra sets of arms, she mused, to be able to do this all the time. 

The kid didn’t react to the spoon she pressed against its teeth at first. 

“Come on, it’s soup, it’s good for you,” she hissed quietly, frustrated at the lack of response. “Open your mouth.”

She didn’t think it would work, but it did. Huh. She checked just to make sure, but the kid didn’t look any more awake than before. Maybe it was a subconscious reaction. 

There wasn’t much of an opening to work with, but it was enough for her to bring the spoon against and slowly dribble the mushy soup into the barely opened maw.

And what a maw! 

No kid should have teeth like that, she thought, crooked and jagged and sharp like the edges of a cliff. How did it speak? How did it use a mouth like that? She couldn’t begin to imagine it. 

To her relief, the kid swallowed the soup instead of choking on it. Or instead of the soup just falling through. It looked like this was some sort of skeleton monster, and she didn't know how they normally ate, if they could even eat normally without the food just falling through their mostly empty bodies. She made sure to dribble some of the soup into the mouth of the baby too. This one didn't even have teeth yet. Weird, a skeleton without teeth. She wondered when they would grow, and if they would look just as eerie and jagged as the teeth of the elder one.

In what felt like no time at all, she fetched a second bowl of soup, eating some herself but feeding the majority to the kids. They must have been starving, to eat like that while sick. 

They actually didn't look like they were in the best of shapes in general, she noticed. Apart from the fact that they were sick, and obviously far too hungry, she could look down into the shirt of the older kid from her new vantage point, and she could see barely healed cracks on its ribs, the bone looking more brittle than she thought it should. Not that she knew much about skeleton children, but still. Definitely a case for child services. 

She sighed, anger curling in her soul. It wasn't that she was particularly fond of kids, but bringing them into the world and then not caring for them, or worse - that was just wrong. Even she could see that. Even she had enough compassion in her to not leave two starving kids out in the trash alone. Some monsters were really disgusting. 

The older child began to shiver, its mouth shutting with a clack, hiding all the ragged teeth behind a smooth, unified grin that stretched across the soft face. Baby face, she thought, it was the kind of softness that came from more than just young age. This kid would always look a little bit squishy and round, she was willing to bet. It would probably be a good idea to fetch another blanket now, to help with the shivers.

Instead, she found herself tugging the kid closer, pressing it into the thick, fuzzy fur on her chest. Careful so she wouldn't squish the baby between them, she hugged the child close and wrapped the blanket around their bodies, trapping her body heat between them. 

The shivering subsided slowly. 

Without questioning herself further on this - because she was sure that if she did she would unearth things about herself that she would much rather leave untouched as they were, thank you very much - she began to sing.

She never cared all that much for children, and her parents weren't the gentle sort either, so she never really learned any lullabys. Except this one. A stupid, annoying song that she heard in a human movie that fell into the trash once, about sailing to a mountain or something. She was pretty sure the humans only invented it to mock the monsters, it was probably all the rage up there, ha ha, those dumb monsters, we sure trapped them good under that mountain, let's write a song about it to celebrate!

But it was a lullaby, and that was what you did with children, wasn't it, when they were sick? Feed them and keep them warm and hug them close and sing them a lullaby. It felt right, for some reason. 

She hugged the children closer, both breathing more calmly now with not a single shiver in sight, and kept singing.

She didn't know yet that she would fall asleep like this. Didn't know that she would wake up early in the morning with her arms empty and cold. That she would jump up and search her apartment in a panic, worry clenching her soul until it almost physically hurt, and find nothing but opened cabinets and drawers, her new groceries and some of her staples gone. Didn't know about how bitter that would feel, or how much confusing hope would be intermingled with that, hope that the kids would make it alone out there or that someone kind would find them and take them in. She didn’t know she would search for them for far longer than she wanted to acknowledge.

She didn't know that, in the years to come, she would keep looking back to that night, and wonder what became of the two underfed kids she had given shelter, how often she would hope that they survived and thrived. 

All she knew in that moment was that she felt exactly like the children looked; warm and content, and at peace.


End file.
